Sadness that overwhelms

Some days you are just sad. Sometimes you can pinpoint what is causing you to feel sadness.  Sometimes you cant.

Today, I am sad.  So sad that my heart actually hurts. Some of the sadness I know comes from circumstances that are going on in my life. My husband is sick.  With what we still aren’t sure, it’s been going on for three years. He’s not the man I married, with energy, zest for life, positivity leaking from his every pore.  He’s tired, he’s sore, he’s angry and bitter. And now he has a severe herniated disk. We aren’t sure what this means for his job- he’s a small business owner and only employee as a mechanic. We aren’t sure what this means for his future.

Today my dad gets the 2nd part of his leg amputation.  An amputation that could have been avoided with better choices over the past 18 years.  He could have managed his diabetes better, he could have avoided diabetes in the first place. But he didn’t.

I am less than 2 months from the age he was when he was diagnosed.  I am overweight– no obese–. 4 years ago, I lost close to 100 pounds.  I was 35, I saw 39 coming and I wasn’t going to let history repeat itself for the 3rd generation. But here I am 46 days from turning 39, and 218 pounds. My fasting glucose this morning was 114. I am prediabetic. And only I can stop it. Diet and exercise.  But last year I hurt my hip, and though an MRI shows a tear in the cartilidge of my hip, and 2 doctors concur it needs fixing the surgeon who would be the one to fix it thinks the MRI was overread. I can’t work out it hurts to exist let alone pivot, lift and flex.  My hands and arms are constantly numb.  Not just when I write, type or knit, but while I eat my breakfast, while I drive, while I exist.

As a Christian I am supposed to remember all this is a refining, the process of sanctification.  That all things are working together for my good.  But I am a bad Christian.  I want this pain gone.  I want to drown the pain with food, with my medications.  I want to feel NOTHING.  I want to sleep.  Sometimes I want to go to sleep and never wake up.

I still think about hurting myself.  I still wonder if those around me would be better off without my crazy in their life. Would I be better off if my father hadn’t been in my life? If he had walked away and not let his scars from childhood scar me? Sometimes I really think that yes, I would have. Maybe I wouldn’t hate myself so much.  Maybe I would have more self worth.  Maybe I would understand God’s love for me. Maybe I would understand that it’s unconditional not dependent on a set of things that I have to do, or not do. I want to feel that peace of Him in my heart.  I want to know that it’ll all work out, that I am free.   That I am no longer a prisoner to myself, because of Him. But I don’t know how to find that. How do I let go? How do I let Him pick me up, carry me, and take my burden and pain? How?…..